


I Am Become Death

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abusive Snoke (Star Wars), Angst, Armitage Hux is Not Nice, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Conflicted Kylo Ren, Dark, Evil Snoke (Star Wars), Gen, Manipulative Snoke (Star Wars), Minor Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Planet Destruction, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28153494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: How did Starkiller Base come about, and why didn’t Kylo stop the destruction of the Hosnian system?
Kudos: 3
Collections: Bad Day Collection, Gen Prompt Bingo Round 19





	I Am Become Death

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Inventor
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The year doesn’t matter, but it is sometime after the fall of the Empire, and the founders of the First Order are scouting in the Unknown Regions for a place to put their plans for the project known as “Starkiller Base” into action.  
  
(Starkiller. It’s an appropriate name, Rae Sloane thinks. All too appropriate. She can’t say that she likes the idea of what the Imperial scientists were planning with Starkiller Base, but she swore to uphold the Empire’s legacy, and this is no exception)  
  
Rae Sloane steps off the shuttle, feeling the wind stinging her face even as she does so. “We reached it,” she says. There’s a certain amount of excitement there, realizing that they’ve found a place to reconstruct the Empire.   
  
“Yes,” Brendol Hux says, coldly. His hand is a durasteel vise on Armitage Hux’s shoulder. He doesn’t hurt the boy obviously anymore, but Rae will be damned if she sees any hint of affection for him. She wonders absently how one can hate their own offspring, but of all the adjectives to apply to Brendol Hux, “loving” isn’t one of them. “Armitage,” he says to the boy, “The Empire harvested kyber crystals for the Death Star’s superlaser here. This was how, partially, history was shaped. How the Empire became justice, destroyer of worlds.”  
  
Rae hesitates to call it justice. They need a base, at least.   
  
***  
  
When Kylo Ren comes onboard and is introduced to Starkiller Base (after Snoke becomes Supreme Leader in place of Sloane and Brendol Hux), he is disgusted — and glad that the mask he wears is good at concealing how he feels. The mask isn’t just a ridiculous thing, as Snoke would put it. It’s a shield, a symbol. They see the symbol, not the man, when they look at him. It’s better that way.   
  
“You like it?” Armitage Hux sounds...excited. Full of passion and fire, which is surprising on its own considering that Kylo didn’t think Hux would rise above anything besides “slimy weasel”. “We have the power to control life and death in our hands. To instill order. The Republic failed at instilling order, but we can do it. Strike fear into the hearts of our enemies!”  
  
“Do you have a plan beyond that?” Kylo sneers.   
  
He thinks of his own quest to subvert life and death. Everything. Shara Bey, lying cold in the ground, no doubt a skeleton after all these years. He’s practicing. Next to his attempts to reanimate, Hux’s angry-club method of leadership will look like a child playing with his shiny new toy.   
  
"Kylo Ren is right about that much,” Snoke says. "Instilling order and frightening our enemies is a vague goal at best. We still need to continue construction as well; even the Emperor,” and Kylo does not miss the admiring tone in his voice, "Deceived the Rebellion into thinking they were attacking an incomplete battle station. To go out with a battle station not yet finished, especially one crafted from a whole planet...that is unwise.”  
  
“You make your point convincingly, Supreme Leader," Hux says. He sounds resentful. A thwarted cur, at most. Kylo supposes he can thank Snoke for that.   
  
***  
  
It is Hux who does the majority of the work on Starkiller Base. Kylo wants no part of it, and tries to find ways to slow down the process when he can. Small things. It’s cowardly, he knows that. But he can’t help but think of his mother  
  
 _General Organa_  
  
and the lasting nightmares she had about Alderaan. Loud enough to wake little Ben, even as Han Solo (Dad) reassured him that Mommy was just going through a rough patch. A rough patch. That was one name for having to relive the destruction of your homeplanet over and over again in your nightmares.   
  
He doesn’t know why he remembers it. But he remembers it. Remembers images he saw of Alderaan being a planet one minute and a shattered mess the next.   
  
(He remembers what his mother said. “With Jedha, they just wanted to ravage the planet’s surface," she said. “Tarkin just wanted to annihilate Alderaan. To destroy a whole culture. To tell the galaxy that he could do it whenever he wanted. He only made the galaxy angry.”)  
  
He wonders if all the First Order will do is make the galaxy angry.   
  
***  
  
It’s one day that Snoke calls him to the Supremacy. “I know what you’re doing, Kylo Ren,” he says. “I was willing to let you do it for a while. Perhaps you would learn. But I’m afraid that you have not learned your lesson. You are conflicted, split — as split as the rift in Ilum itself that harvests the kyber crystals. It is your weakness that is standing in the way of Starkiller Base being truly formidable, us being truly invincible.”  
  
“Surely there are other ways,” Kylo says. "Star Destroyers. Fire. It wouldn’t involve one...disintegrating a planet.”  
  
"Skywalker is out there, you idiot,” Snoke snarls. “As long as that planet that houses the first Jedi Temple is there, we are all in danger. Disorder still lives. Are you really so much of a sniveling, cowardly excuse for an apprentice that you would put us all in danger?”  
  
Kylo lunges at him.   
  
He’s caught, lifted into the air as it feels like his own air is being squeezed from his lungs.   
  
Eventually, Snoke lets him down, when Kylo thinks that he’s going to start wishing that Snoke was dead so this nightmare can finally end.   
  
"Remember this, Kylo Ren,” Snoke says. “You are helpless. You are nothing. I can use this weapon on anything you love. Maybe Yavin?”  
  
“No!” Kylo says. Then, hurriedly, “I’ll do what you ask. Anything. Just...not that.”  
  
Snoke smiles. “Now you understand."  
  
***  
  
Starkiller Base is finished. Kylo doesn’t have much time to process that outside of a quick glance at Hux that shows he disapproves of it, all of it — but on the bridge of the Finalizer, he watches. He can’t see Hux giving a speech, but he can feel Hux’s conviction, his thirst for blood, his complete belief that the Republic and the Resistance both deserve to die.   
  
He watches as a red light like a comet shoots across the sky. He reaches out through the Force — his mother is not there. Neither is his father. Poe is obviously not there.   
  
It doesn’t make it any less physically painful, ripping, when the Republic is obliterated from existence.


End file.
